Monday, June 17, 2013

Part 109 - Acting Like Yogi the Bear

Between the meal and dessert, I left the table to return to the washing machine
to put my clothes in the dryer. Back at the table, the waiter brought
dessert, which was strawberry shortcake.

I enjoyed
the ambience of the lodge and the dining hall, with its unique setting in the
woods, surrounded by streams, hot springs, hiking paths and horse trails; and
although the facilities are older – dating back to the 1950s, I could
understand the attraction and allure the resort has for city dwellers who
wanted a chance at roughing it in style.

I used my
credit card to pay the bill, and returned to the back of the dining hall to
retrieve my clothes from the dryer. My clothes weren’t quite dry, but
wanting to be on my way, I stopped the dryer, pulled my clothes out, and
returned to the bathroom to put them on.

As a side
note, after finishing the trail, and resuming normal activities at home like
paying off my Visa credit card debts, I found I averaged close to $600 a month
in additional expenses over the initial costs of the trip, which wasn’t hard to
do when taking into account the cost of three- or four-nights' motel lodging
per month, restaurant meals, convenience store, and grocery store purchases.
I would gauge the overall expenses for the five-months' journey at close
to $7,000, which didn’t include the cost of transportation, lodging, and meals
for the three visits of my wife, Jodie.

I loved
the smell of clean clothes that have the scent of laundry soap, and even though
they were still a bit damp, I had no problem wearing less than dry clothes; it
would be akin to stopping at a stream and wetting my shirt and putting it back
on, in an effort to affect something resembling air conditioning. The
hard part about getting back on the trail was encasing myself in the pungent
backpack that smelled as ripe as a horse blanket that had just been pulled off
the back of a sweaty horse.

Leaving
the area of the lodge, I followed the dirt road east as it skirted around the
guest cabins nestled in the trees. Within a half mile, I entered the
Warner Valley Campground that had cement-vault toilets, picnic tables,
campsites for both tents and RVs and potable water available from spigots. Camped just inside the entrance to the campground was a Canadian couple –
Forget-me-not and her husband E-Path, both retired educators.

I stopped
to visit with them for a few moments, and told them about my experience at
Drakesbad Resort. I hadn’t planned on spending the night in the
campground, but when they told me that Pia was camped nearby and enjoying a bit
of trail magic, I decided to stay.

I quickly
set up my tent and stashed my belongings inside of it, and then went looking
for Pia, hoping that wherever she was, trail magic would be present. It
wasn’t hard to find her among the campers, as she was sitting at a campsite
which contained the only pickup truck with a camper shell loaded in the back of
the truck. She was sitting with two men and a woman who was section
hiking part of the trail. I said, “Hello,” to all and then engaged Pia in
conversation, with the hopes that if trail magic were still available, I might
be offered to partake.

I honestly felt like the cartoon character Yogi
Bear who comes into a camp with the sole intent of sponging something from the
unsuspecting campers.

Within a
few moments the three strangers introduced themselves and asked if I would like
a hamburger. I had just eaten a fine meal at the Drakesbad Dining Lodge,
and now I was fishing for anything else that might be available; without a
shred of shame, I said,

“I would
be delighted,” and made myself comfortable at the end of the picnic table.

Hamburger, chips, salad, cookies, fruit, and drink were placed before me,
and it all disappeared without even so much as crumbs left behind for the ants
to fight over. Pia informed me that Bipolar had had to leave the trail
due to stress injuries to one of his feet, for which I was genuinely sorry to
hear. Before Pia and I left the table to return to our tents, Yashinka
showed up and he too was treated to the same meal that Pia and I have just
enjoyed.

From
Drakesbad Resort the trail climbed steep Flatiron Ridge that towered over the
Warner Valley Campground, where I spent the night and continued across the
relatively flat ground of Grassy Swale to a trail junction just beyond Lower
Twin Lake. At the junction, I had a choice of two trails that would take
me to the same place farther up the trail.

The official PC Trail stayed
to the right and connected to an old pioneer wagon road heading west, named the
Nobles Road, established in 1852 by William Nobles, as an easier road to Shasta
City and the upper Sacramento Valley, while the left trail, which was the more
scenic trail, passed by a series of lakes. I chose the official Pacific
Crest Trail; I had seen enough wilderness lakes and was more interested in
investigating and experiencing what an old wagon road looked like. The
two trails reconnected at a wide spot in the road, labeled on my map as Badger
Flat, which was just inside the north boundary line of Lassen National Park.